Boulevard Grill is one of those low-key neighborhood places that doesn’t need trendy buzz or tuned-in clientele to fill seats. Instead, it keeps the doors open with good beer specials ($2.25 pints of Bud and $3 Fat Tire on Thursdays, for example), reliable burgers, classic rock, a pool table and sports on TV.

The burger: The Hercules ($8.25 with fries) is a cornucopia of food-service staples: yellow American cheese, domesticated provolone, paper-thin bacon, a beef patty in the third-pound range with every last bit of personality cooked out of it. It’s finished with a rambling pile of shredded lettuce, tomatoes, white onions, jalapeños and in a gesture of canned overkill, mushrooms. Hercules carries his burden across one of those thick white kolache-style buns so sweet they cover up or cover for just about any sin, and to Boulevard’s credit, it works just fine among friends in this cordial bar-and-grill environment.

Fries or rings? French fries are wrapped into the price of a burger, or you can substitute onion rings for an extra 79 cents. Both come from a bag, but Boulevard makes its own chili, so a basket of chili cheese fries ($3.99) lets you catch some local flavor. That flavor is the kind Wolf Brand fans will recognize, made with soft nuggets of ground beef and a one-note chili-powder spice. The fries are pinkie-sized blond sticks scrubbed free of skin and cooked in clean oil, and they’re a better choice than onion rings, especially these overly sweet battered rings I’ve eaten in a dozen other places.

2-for-1 burgers: On Mondays and Saturdays, burgers are 2-for-1 as long as you buy two drinks, soft drinks included. If you’re looking for a deal on something besides a burger, chicken-fried steak is 2-for-1 on Thursdays.